Metonymy:
The name of one thing is used for another thing to which it is related. We use metonymy when we use "the crown" for the king or "the stage" for theatre. Similarly, when we use "Shakespeare" to mean his works we use metonymy. Some other examples are given below:
"Rest, rest perturbed spirit:"
(Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act I, Scene V)
"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
(Shelley: "Ozymandias")
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isleâ
(Tennyson: "Ulysses")
In the first example, "spirit" has been used for ghost; in the second example, "Mighty" has been used for a powerful king; and in the third example the "sceptre" has been used for kingship or the authority to rule.
Metre:
The arrangement of "feet" [i.e. stressed and unstressed syllables] in a verse line. A verse line is named according to the number of its foot:
A line containing one foot is called monometer.
A line containing two feet is called diameter.
A line containing three feet is called trimeter.
A line containing four feet is called tetrameter.
A line containing five feet is called pentameter.
A line containing six feet is called hexameter.
A line containing seven feet is called heptameter.
A line containing eight feet is called octameter.
Each of these meters may again be different according to the use of various types of feet. A monometer line may be iambic monometer ("Thus I/ Pass by"), trochaic monometer ("Turning/ Burning/ Changing/ Ranging"), Anapaestic monometer ("'Tis in vain/ They complain"), dactylic monometer ("Wit with this/ wantonness") and so on. Similarly, a diameter may be iambic diameter, trochaic diameter, anapaestic diameter, dactylic diameter etc. A pentameter may be iambic pentameter, trochaic pentameter, anapaestic pentameter, dactylic pentameter and the like.
Motif: "One of the dominant ideas in a work of literature."
Negative Capability:
An ability that enables a writer to keep himself aloof from his writings. It is synonymous with objectivity. Keats who coined this phrase defines it as an ability which makes a writer "capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Shakespeare had this ability because his personal life cannot be discovered from his plays. Keats claimed that he also had this ability. T. S. Eliot called it impersonality of art.
